Suzanne Vega

"If you had said in high school that this kid who technically couldn't sing and wasn't outgoing would have a 20-year career as a performer and pop songwriter nobody would've believed you.

"I'm still very much that teenage girl in my room wondering how my music can connect with people, can I put my vision into words, do other people see what I see? There's still a thrill about that for me.

"I've had the freedom to do what I wanted, on my own terms and on my own timetable. I'm very handmade," says Vega. "I see my career as a spiral, revolving around the central point of my guitar and lyrics."

When in 1987, Luka earned her three Grammy nominations, including for Record of the Year, Vega was ushered into a female, acoustic, folk-pop singer-songwriter movement that would include the likes of Tracy Chapman, Shawn Colvin, and Indigo Girls as well as the Lilith Fair phenomenon.

"Others thought what I was doing was a novelty. I wasn't overtly pop at a time when the charts had Madonna, Cyndi Lauper and The Bangles. But I don't look at it as breaking barriers. I just wanted to write poetic, complicated, emotional, urban songs. I made the music I wanted to make and expressed myself to the fullest."

Though born in Santa Monica, California, after her parents divorced she grew up in Spanish Harlem and the Upper West Side of New York City. Influenced by her computer systems analyst mother and Puerto Rican writer stepfather and the multicultural music they played, from Motown, folk and cool jazz to Beatles pop and bossa nova, she began playing guitar at age 11 and as a teenager began writing songs.

At the High School for the Performing Arts she studied dance but at Barnard College she was a literature major. A 1979 Lou Reed concert proved an inspiration for her vision of contemporary folk. While supporting herself as a receptionist, she attended the Greenwich Village songwriter's Exchange and played folk festivals and Lower East Side coffee-houses.

Soon after she graduated from college in 1982, she was the local folk scene's brightest hope. But record companies saw little prospect of commercial success.

Vega's demo tape was rejected by every major record company - twice by A&M, which eventually signed her in 1984.

"Acoustic music had gone from the public scene," she remembers, "but not from people's lives. People will always play it because all you need is a guitar. It's a very independent music and I'm a very independent person. I could just get on a Greyhound (bus) to any town, set up and sing."

Her 1985 self-titled debut album was a surprise hit in the UK, thanks partly to the single Marlene On The Wall, and was critically acclaimed in the USA. The New York Times hailed her as 'the strongest, most decisively shaped songwriting personality to come along in years'.

The 1987 album Solitude Standing elevated her to star status. The album peaked at number one and went platinum. Its Luka, written from the perspective of an abused boy, was a most surprising hit.

"It's a story about a lot of pain and it still moves me," says Vega. "I still get mail about it. People telling me stories of abuse. It's not a hit about love or something benign so that makes it a little difficult to play at times but it has so much meaning for so many people. If I'm only remembered for that song then that's a good thing."

Continuing to battle preconceptions, she teamed with producer Mitchell Froom for 1992's 99.9F. The album's sound instigated descriptions such as 'industrial folk' and 'technofolk'. Certified gold, 99.9F won a New York Music Award as Best Rock Album.

Says Vega: "It was a chance to stretch out. The music was edgy but still humanly connected." Vega and Froom also connected; they married and daughter Ruby was born in 1994.

Over the years, she has also been heard on the soundtracks to Dead Man Walking, Pretty In Pink and The Truth About Cats & Dogs, and contributed to such diverse projects as the Disney compilation Stay Awake, Grateful Dead tribute Deadicated, Leonard Cohen tribute Tower Of Song, and Pavarotti & Friends.

"I've left no stone unturned," she says. "This idea that I'm a fragile waif falls by the wayside when anyone listens to the range of subject matter and style. There's soft and hard, sexy and abrasive, traditional and experimental. My voice is very simple and because of that it fits into different atmospheres and can take on what people might not expect."

Suzanne Vega plays the City Hall, Salisbury on 27 June. Performance: 8pm Tickets: £15 in advance Box office: 01722 327676